ESSAYS 135 



posed, as popular writers assert, of" the flower of the land" : they contain men of 

 all sorts and sizes, sons of Anakim, and bantams — men of 50-inch chests, and men 

 of 32-inch chests — magnificent specimens of humanity, and very feeble creatures — 

 men of keen sight, and men of impaired vision. 



The question is : Does modern war select the best or worst of these ? and if the 

 best, will the net result be serious racial deterioration ? 



That is a difficult question, and I should not care to answer it dogmatically. 

 But, considering the nature of modern warfare, the impartiality of machine-guns, 

 the wholesale massacre of shrapnel, it seems very probable that death is indis- 

 criminate in his harvest. It is no longer a matter of individual courage and 

 initiative ; it is no longer a matter of hand-to-hand combat, where the strong or 

 cunning man survives ; it is no longer a matter of disease versus constitution ; it is 

 no longer a case of battle in the open where the bigger men are the better targets ; 

 it is a case of blind, indiscriminate slaughter. 



On the dysgenic side we might point out that the best regiments have, in most 

 cases, been given the most dangerous tasks ; but whether this selection would be 

 sufficiently stringent to have much effect on the race as a whole must be doubtful, 

 especially in view of the fact that many more are wounded and captured than 

 killed. And even if — as we question — modern warfare do chiefly kill off the 

 bigger and the stronger men, so also do many industrial occupations. The 

 average physique of many great industrial centres is much below that of the 

 general population, and the discrepancy is not wholly nurtural. Weaving 

 machines involving sedentary work, bad air, and meagre diet, eliminate the big 

 man much more discriminately than shooting machines : for the big man requires 

 more air and food than he can get. In the United States alone the yearly toll 

 of poverty and preventable diseases amounts to 250,000 dead, and 4,700,000 

 wounded ; and it has been said that the net result of the American steel industry 

 is the manufacture of millionaires and the slaughter of babies. The slaying may 

 in some cases be a eugenic process— though in many industries, as we have said, 

 the most fit to survive are certainly not those of best physique — but the wounding 

 is probably much more dysgenic than the wounding of war. So that we reach the 

 curious paradox that war is eugenic in so far as it takes men from the dysgenic 

 industries of peace. 



Even apart from industrial selection, physique, qua physique, has no particular 

 survival value on the battle-fields of peace. Money is one of the most important 

 weapons of the armies of peace ; and selection by gold is at least as dysgenic 

 as selection by lead or steel. A puny millionaire is more likely to survive and 

 propagate his stock than an impecunious Hercules. When we think, too, of the 

 deep-reaching and wide-reaching dysgenic effects of drunkenness and certain 

 racial diseases, we find it difficult to attach great importance to any possible 

 dysgenic selection by war. 



On the eugenic side may be counted the good and sufficient food, the open-air 

 life, and the physical training that soldiers enjoy. These tend to improve the 

 soldiers' general health and to diminish their vulnerability to tuberculosis and 

 some other diseases, and may have some actual racial results, since war, through 

 higher wages, with less overcrowding and more food, will also tend to improve the 

 health of the women and the children of the lower classes. (This does not apply 

 to Germany, which is probably suffering from insufficient food.) Such improve- 

 ment in health, however, will be probably quite nullified by greater prevalence of 

 drunkenness, nerve diseases, and vice diseases, and by the greater poverty and 

 destitution that will follow the war. 



